


to repair the world

by xslytherclawx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Community: purimgifts, Gen, Head Girl Hermione Granger, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Jewish Anthony Goldstein, Jewish Hermione Granger, Minor Canonical Character(s), Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Tikkun olam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28707621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/pseuds/xslytherclawx
Summary: It's been a long time since Hermione's felt so alone at Hogwarts.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Anthony Goldstein
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12
Collections: All Your Faves Are Jewish, Purimgifts 2021, xslytherclawx's jewish fic, xslytherclawx’s events collection





	to repair the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aibhilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aibhilin/gifts).



For the first time since first year, Hermione doesn’t know where to sit – or, more accurately, where to stow her bags – on board the Hogwarts Express.

She has friends. Harry is her friend. Ron is – well, whatever else he is, he’s still her friend. Even Ginny, Neville, and Luna are her friends.

But Harry and Ron aren’t returning. And Ginny, Luna, and Neville are in their own little world. (She does stow her bags in their compartment, though; Crookshanks doesn't like most strangers).

You would think she’d be used to being alone, but after nearly seven years of having a tight-knit group of friends who would quite literally die for each other… she finds it stings worse than it did when she was eleven.

Fortunately, she’s Head Girl, somehow, despite not being a Seventh Year (she wonders if McGonagall pulled both Head Boy and Head Girl from the returning Eighth Year – it’s really hardly as if the Seventh Years aren’t going to need to come back for Eighth Year, realistically. It’d be impossible to bring them up to date  _ and _ teach then everything they need to know for N.E.W.T.s in just a year. Hermione could do it, but that doesn’t mean everyone can) so that provides a distraction.

She’s pleasantly surprised to see several familiar faces in the Prefects’ compartment: Anthony Goldstein, Padma Patil, Ernie Macmillan, and Hannah Abbott from the D.A.

She’s friendly enough with all of them, but she doesn’t think they’re properly  _ friends. _ She is, however, surprised to see the Head Boy badge gleaming from Anthony’s robes. She’d have thought it’d be Ernie.

“Of course you’re Head Girl,” Anthony says after he greets her. “I’d have been shocked if it’d have been anyone else.”

“I think that would have just been all the more proof that you weren’t coming back,” Hannah says.

Hermione frowns. “Did you not think I’d come back?”

“I think most people had to make a tough decision,” Hannah explains. “Though I’m sure it was easier for some people than others, but… it’s not going to be the same when we get back.”

“Well, no, of course it isn’t going to be the same, but how else are we meant to get our N.E.W.T.s?”

“I think what Hannah’s trying to say is that a lot of people don’t quite see the point in N.E.W.T.s after surviving a war. Especially when the D.M.L.E. is still holding trials,” Padma says.

“We all see the point,” Hannah says gently. “That’s why we’re here and not home. But it was hard to guess even this morning who would make the same decision.”

Hermione can’t see how they wouldn’t assume  _ she’d _ make the same decision, even if she can understand what they mean.

But, well, hadn’t she willingly skipped Seventh Year to hunt Horcruxes with Harry? Skipping Eighth Year wouldn’t be the same thing, but… they have a point; there is precedent. 

“I don’t think most of the D.A. did come back,” Padma says.

“Ginny, Neville, and Luna did.”

“Neville?” Anthony asks. 

Hermione nods. “Just saw him on the way here.”

“I’d have thought he’d have taken the offer to go straight to auror training.”

She knows Anthony doesn’t  _ mean _ anything by it. Honestly, Anthony is one of the kindest people she knows. She knows that she’s never really been  _ that _ close to Neville, and she knows even more that she really can never know just  _ how _ awful it was to be in the D.A. at Hogwarts last year. 

But it is, for all Anthony’s good intentions, another reminder that she’s not nearly as close to anyone here as they are to each other. Part of her wants to get off at Hogsmeade Station and apparate back to London and get on with her life with Ron and Harry.

She won’t do that, of course. But she wants to.

Evidently sensing his error, Anthony backtracks. “It was in the Prophet,” he says.

Hermione shakes her head. “It’s fine. Erm, are you going home for the High Holy Days?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” Anthony says. “Wanted to see if we had a minyan at Hogwarts first. It’s us, my cousins Annie and Emily, Rose Zeller, the Shapiro brothers, Nora Branstone, and Nigel Wolpert. If everyone comes back, that’s nine. Plus the Torah, that’s a minyan. Not counting staff. Which is always possible. Oh, and the Greengrass sisters. If, you know, they deign to come.”

“But then we’d need just about everyone else to stay, too.”

“It doesn’t look great, but we can discuss it on Shabbos. If everyone else goes home, I probably will, too. I might for Rosh Hashanah anyway, but… half my family’s left the U.K. and not returned. They’re safe, but…”

“But they’re not here,” Hermione finishes. “I can relate.” She’s spent the past several years without her own family. It’s not something she’d wish on anyone – certainly not someone as kind as Anthony.

“I’m sure it’ll all work out. It’s not going to be perfect straightaway, but aren’t we meant to repair the world as we can?”

Hermione manages a genuine smile for the first time in hours. “Yes. You’re right. We are.”

Perhaps Eighth Year won’t be so bad, after all.

At the very least, she’s not starting from scratch. She has friends, even if they’re not her best friends. Besides, she’s Head Girl. She’s meant to be a role model.

It’s certainly small, but she can do her part to start repairing the world right here.

**Author's Note:**

> image description: a picrew icon of Martha Jones from Doctor Who (2005). [picrew link.](https://picrew.me/image_maker/582810/)
> 
> * * *
> 
> Only Anthony Goldstein is canonically Jewish, but Hermione is Jewish often enough in headcanons (and is a woman canonically either way). Zeller and Wolpert are both commonly Jewish surnames, though Rose has (to my knowledge) no speaking roles, and Nigel's are... perhaps on par with Anthony's.  
> (Eleanor Branstone and the Greengrass sisters are canon characters with no - to my knowledge - canon relationship to Judaism. The Shapiro brothers and Anthony's cousins are of my own creation).


End file.
